


Very Good Friends

by creepy_crawly



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Feels, Friendship, Gen, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepy_crawly/pseuds/creepy_crawly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob is a very good friend. (Bob, and Nico, and the time between the Lethe and Tartarus.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Very Good Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for [fimyuan](http://fimyuan.tumblr.com/post/107067056965/hi-i-hope-its-not-too-much-to-ask-but-if-you), based on the linked gorgeousness.

**Title:** Very Good Friends  
 **Author:** VeritInMe/creepy_crawly  
 **Fandom:** PJO  
 **Summary:** Bob is a very good friend. (Bob, and Nico, and the time between the Lethe and Tartarus.) Written for [fimyuan](fimyuan.tumblr.com).

Very Good Friends

“Bob,” the tiny boy says, looking up and up and up at him, a little fold between his dark eyes. He says Bob’s name like he’s learning the word for the first time, like he’s just reading the letters and creating the meaning then and there.

“I am Bob,” Bob agrees, nodding. He looks down to the tiny boy. “Hello.”

“Hi,” the boy says. He frowns a little, then looks back up at Bob’s face. The line between his eyes gets deeper. “Are you new?”

“Bob cleans up,” Bob explains, pointing proudly to his name, sewn as it is into his jumpsuit.

That seems to take the boy aback. “We have a janitor?” he wonders, more to himself than anything.

Bob nods anyway. “Percy Jackson asked the Lady Persephone to find Bob a job,” he explains. “He is a good friend. A very good friend.”

The boy’s eyes go wide. Slowly, so slowly, he nods. “Right,” he says. “Hi, Bob. I’m Nico.” And he thrusts out a tiny, bony hand.

It’s so small, so fragile against Bob’s own hand. He’s very careful as he shakes it.

\---

Nico sits on top of a statue’s carved head, his head resting on top of his knees. They’re folded in against his chest, bony and sparse as the rest of him. He’s as thin as the bristles of the broom Bob’s pushing around the room, his skin a sallow shadow in the glittering obsidian ballroom.

Bob doesn’t say anything, just keeps sweeping in the tiny corners behind the columns and at the statues’ feet. Keeping the Underworld that ethereal kind of clean is hard, requires a lot of work, but being Nico’s friend requires even more work. You’ve got to know when to talk and when to wait for him to talk. Sometimes Bob also needs to tell him to take his shoes off before walking on the clean floors, but Nico never seems to mind that.

“He’s a hero,” Nico says finally.

Bob still doesn’t say anything. He knows who Nico’s talking about—Nico always talks about him. Or her. They both seem to hurt, but talking about her seems to hurt more, so Nico always talks about him. Bob doesn’t mind.

“He’s a hero,” Nico repeats, turning his head on his knees. “And he promised, you know? So he should have…”

Bob waits, but Nico doesn’t finish the sentence.

That’s okay. Nico never finishes that sentence.

Bob keeps sweeping.

\---

“Take your boots off,” Bob says, not even looking up. He can tell when Nico’s coming, from a long way off. The tiny boy—who’s not quite so tiny anymore, at least not in terms of height—smells like honey and grave dirt and fireworks that were shot off just a minute ago. The Lady Persephone smells like lilac and wormwood, and she floats more than walks, her slippered feet barely tapping the polished and gleaming floors. Hades has great, powerful strides, like his son’s but longer, and he carries the smell of warm fireplaces and sleep. Everything else around here either doesn’t smell or reeks of the dead.

There’s a pause behind him, and then the heavy sound of empty boots falling to the floor. Nico is a whispered brush of cotton against polished marble, and then he is a warm weight behind Bob. He hovers there for half of a heartbeat, and then steps forward, until he’s underneath one of the large tapestries that lines the hall.

Bob looks up to see which one. _Saturn Devouring His Son_ , he sees, and frowns a little. Bob does not like that tapestry, does not like it at all. Bob doesn’t know _why_ he dislikes it so much, but the threadwork sends chills up his spine and sets loose terror in his belly. Seeing Nico standing in front of it, Bob wants to snatch him away.

“Persephone commissioned these,” Nico says, maybe not noticing that Bob has stopped cleaning. “Did you know that? When Goya—the painter—died, she had him work with her favourite weavers. And now we have these.” He waves at the tapestries, at the one that so scares Bob and the ones around it, all in those sick, sallow shades of earth and death and fear.

“Bob does not like it,” Bob confesses, his hands tightening on his mop.

Nico turns to look at him, his dark eyes sunk deep in his skull like the corpse’s arm in Saturn’s mouth. “I don’t think we’re supposed to like them,” he says, reaching up to trace the line of one oversized ankle. “Perse had these done when she was pissed at Da—at Hades. He’d done something stupid.” His smile bitters, like fouled water. “Guess it runs in the family.”

Bob doesn’t know what to say to that, but he knows that he wants to say something. Bob wants to wash the sick look from Nico’s dawn-pale face, wants to see his hollow cheeks colour with a smile, even that shy sad one he tries to hide under his hair.

“Percy Jackson would say that they are ugly,” Bob says suddenly, the words breaking free before he even knows he is thinking them. “He’s a good friend. He would not like them.”

Nico huffs a sound. It sounds like a laugh. “He would, wouldn’t he?” he says, looking at Bob and not the tapestries. His mouth curls, just a little, a twitch of motion, a hint of a grin. “No taste for art. Suppose it’s a good thing he’s so nice.” His tongue darts out, wets his lips. “Good thing he’s... he’s such a good friend.”

“He’s a good friend,” Bob repeats, putting a large hand on Nico’s knife-thin shoulder. “A very good friend for Bob. And for Nico.”

“Yeah,” Nico agrees, voice thick. “Yeah.”

\---

“And then he’s just like, _wham_ , and the thing is just like, _blooie_ , and, like, dust, everywhere,” Nico says, gesturing wildly with the hematite blade he’s supposedly polishing. His doe-dark eyes are dancing and bright, sitting like capped obsidian in the depths of his bone-white face, skeletally thin.

Delighted at the recitation, Bob claps. “Oh, well done, Percy Jackson!” he says, beaming. He, too, should be polishing, working on the large statue that usually carries the sword Nico’s working on, but he got a little distracted. It’s rare that someone shares information that interests Bob with him, and he likes hearing about Percy Jackson’s adventures. Bob likes that almost as much as Nico likes telling them.

“It was amazing,” Nico continues, a fever brightness to his voice. “Like, just… He was smiling, you know, the way he does when he’s fighting. And he was so fast, and his arms…” He flushes brilliantly, turning his attention back to the carved sword. “It was amazing, Bob.”

\---

“Thanks, Bob,” Nico says, looking at his polished sword, his mended jacket, his washed clothes. “You didn’t have to do all this, you know.”

“Bob wanted to,” Bob assures him. “Bob is Nico’s friend.”

Nico smiles up at him. “You are, Bob. You’re a very good friend.”

\---

His name.

He hears his name, from Tartarus.

_Bob is a very good friend_ , he thinks.

And he jumps.


End file.
